Disclosing this here yesterday, Tikshan Sud, medical education and research minister, said the decision was taken by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal keeping in view the poor financial conditions of SC students. He said it was noticed that some genuine SC students did not get admission due to their failure to pay upfront fee to the institutions. He said according to the earlier system, the student was required to pay fee and other charges upfront and later seek reimbursement from the government.

Now the institutes after admitting eligible students would seek reimbursement of fee and scholarship from the Punjab government after completing the process of admission.

Secretary, Medical Education and Research, Jagjit Puri explained that instructions had been issued to registrar, Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, director, Medical Education and Research, director, Ayush, and principals of all medical, ayurvedic, homeopathy, dental and nursing colleges in the state to make this decision part of prospectus of their institutes and also bring this decision to the notice of every SC students at the time of counselling.

The total fee for the twoyear programme at FIIT JEE in 2008 was Rs 94,282. Pramod Panwar, a student at FIIT JEE, had paid Rs 77,446 in one go towards this amount. After attending the course for five-anda-half months, Panwar dropped out, finding the quality of teaching unsatisfactory. When he asked for a refund of the balance amount, however, the coaching centre said that the fee is not refundable.

``...By charging consideration for the period for which it is yet to provide the service, the institute forces the student to continue with the course despite there being unsatisfactory service ... in the quality of teaching, thereby jeopardising the career prospects of the students.'' said Justice J D Kapoor in a recent order.

Twenty year old Devender Singh had applied for an eight-month course at the Indian Institute of Hardware Technology, based in Yamuna Vihar in September, 2005, after he read about their
"100 per cent placement guarantee".

Because of his family's financial condition, he had to work part time to shell out the fee amount. Over two years have passed since then but even half the course has not yet been completed, Singh said. Singh, along with three other students of the same course, have complained to the East District Consumer forum, demanding fee refund and a compensation of Rs 1 lakh from the institute.

Coaching institutes of all shapes and sizes are leaving no stones unturned to lure these aspirants with crash courses of 150 to 300 hours for the entrance tests. ``Generally, we charge around Rs 12,000 for 44 sessions for AIEEE and other engineering entrance exams. We are also providing a discount of Rs 1,000 to each student if they come in a group of seven or more,'' said Saurabh Malhotra, business development officer, Career Launcher.

In its annual IT industry survey, leading IT magazine, Dataquest, reports that NIIT has further strengthened its leadership position in the Indian IT training industry and is now nearly 1.5 times bigger than the combined revenues of the next 4 players put together and has widened the winning gap by becoming 3.72 times the size of the No. 2 player.

Seen in the picture is Mr. Ashish Basu, President of NIIT's Knowledge Solutions Business who received the trophy on behalf of NIIT, from Mr. Pradeep Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director of Cybermedia Group, at the awards function held in the Capital, recently.

Indian IT industry at Rs. 164,652 crore in 05-06
Dataquest reports that the Indian IT industry logged in total IT revenues of Rs 164,652 crore in the year ended March 31, 2006 recording a growth of 33 per cent. (However, based on dollar denominated revenues, the growth was placed at 31 per cent). The industry showed a remarkable growth across all segments. The IT Services and BPO industry exports grew 33 per cent to record revenues of Rs 87,951 crore. The domestic IT industry went up 28 per cent to report revenues of Rs 56141 crore.

Recent developments at NIIT
The wide acceptance by the industry of NIIT's special programmes for engineering students and the multi-track GNIIT programme led to doubling the number of placement of our students in 2005-06.

NIIT, which addressed the spectrum of e-Learning activities, like learning content, design and development and integration of learning tools, hosted solutions and learner support services, completed its portfolio by acquiring the US headquartered Element K, recently. Together, NIIT and Element K will emerge as the leading global provider of comprehensive learning solutions, with more than 3,000 employees.

"All training institutes and educational centres preparing students for entrance examinations... are hereby directed not to charge fees for the whole duration of the course in advance by way of lumpsum payment," the Delhi State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission headed by Justice J D Kapoor and member Rumnitta Mittal said.

Holding that a no-refund rule is "unconscionable and voidable", Justice Kapoor cautioned institutes that violation of the order would attract punitive damages and erring officials may be sent to jail under the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act.

The commission gave the students liberty to leave the course if they found it was not satisfactory.